To James Redpath
9 October 1870 • Buffalo, N.Y.
(MS: Axelrod, UCCL 10496)

Buf. Sunday.

Dear [Redpath—]

Have had a death in my house, & am hurried with literary work [beside1—]& so I give up the additions to the Map. Let Prang go ahead with the Map just as it is. One of these days, if the opportunity offers I will try to get up something which can be copyrighted & thus enure to mutual benefit. I wish I had the time to fix up the additions to this Map, for [ this there] might be a success made of it—but circumstances have put a [veto on] it. I hope Prang will make some money out of this work of art for I haven’t—& can’t, now because of my neglect to copyright it.2

I would like to lecture next year, but don’t know.

I have a notion to get up a hideous panorama & a bully accompanying lecture & put some fellow into your lecture field to go through the lyceums with it.

Ys

Mark.

[letter docketed:] boston lyceum bureau. redpath & fall. oct 11 1870 [and] S. L. Clemens | 10/11 | ’70 [on attached slip:]

Dear Mr Prang:—

The enclosed speaks for itself.

Please return it

Yours

James Redpath

Explanatory Notes | Textual Commentary

Editorial Signs

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1 Since Emma Nye’s death on 29 September, Clemens had made little progress on Roughing It and, as this and the letter of 4 October show, was beginning to distract himself with other projects. See RI 1993, 819–25.

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2 The next letter indicates that Clemens may nevertheless have tried to copyright “Fortifications of Paris” long after it had been published and reprinted by others. He may also have changed his mind about Prang’s reprinting it, for Prang evidently did not do so. And although Clemens never revised his map, he did reprint it in 1872 in Mark Twain’s Sketches, in 1874 in Mark Twain’s Sketches. Number One, and in 1878 in Punch, Brothers, Punch! and Other Sketches.

Description of Texts and Provenance

Source text(s):

MS, collection of Todd M. Axelrod.

Previous publication: L4, 205–206; Bangs, lot 81, brief excerpt.

Provenance:The present location of the MS, offered for sale in 1900 and owned in 1983 by Axelrod, is not known.

Emendations and textual notes:

Redpath— • Red[path]— [obscured by inkblot]

beside— • beside—|—

this there • thisere

veto on • v[eto on] [obscured by inkblot]